Chapter Thirty

· Thirty ·

Will

This week has absolutely kicked my ass. But I anticipated that, knowing the influx of business and tourism we’re expecting this weekend, for the eclipse. What I didn’t anticipate was how damn grumpy it was going to make me—I’ve barely had time to text Juliet during the day, and our calls at night have been late and short because she crashes early and my days are stretching too long into the night. At least, tomorrow morning, I finally get to go back to her.

Mom’s corralled us all at the house for a late Friday evening meal, a hasty casserole dinner scarfed down by all the family who’ve pitched in to prepare us for more tours of the distillery, more tastings, more hay rides and pony rides and barn animal petting sessions. Every garden is weeded to perfection, every corner of the tasting rooms polished to a shine.

I’m near delirious with exhaustion.

But I have a conversation that I’ve been putting off that can’t wait any longer.

Dad’s out on the back porch, in his rocker, plucking at his banjo, a habit he picked up for unwinding at the end of the day, when he thankfully gave up smoking his pipe.

“Hey, Dad. Got a minute?”

His voice is low and a little scratchy, like always. “Will.” He nods to the guitar resting between his rocker and the cushioned wicker chair Mom always sits in. “Join me.”

I sit on Mom’s chair and help myself to the guitar, picking quietly in harmony with the tune he’s playing. I’ve heard that tune my whole life, and I learned guitar by ear, first picking up the melody he was playing, then learning how to riff and harmonize with it.

“How’s it going, Pops?”

He chuckles. “Besides the fact that this house is currently overrun with hot-tempered, stressed-out Orsino women, going fine.” He ends the song and starts a new tune. “They worry too much. This weekend will be fine.”

“It’s just how they cope with caring. They want it all to be perfect.”

“Nothing’s perfect,” Dad says. “But you’re right. It’s because they care.” He glances my way, his gray-green eyes like mine holding my gaze. “And how are you , son?”

I peer down at the guitar, on the pretense of listening to his melody, figuring out how I want to join in. Like I don’t know this song as well as I know my own name.

Dad lets my silence hang for a while, then says, “You and I…I know we aren’t real big talkers, but, so you know, if you ever do need to talk, I’m here, son. I love you. You can tell me anything.”

I peer up at him, my heart picking up its pace, searching for the words, how to begin.

He clears his throat. “Just…wanted to say that. In case you had any doubt.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I swallow roughly. “That…means a lot. And…I love you, too.”

There’s a shriek inside the house—Eleanor’s for sure, followed by banging doors. She and Miranda are probably playing tag hide- and-go-seek, because Eleanor’s like Hector—if she doesn’t get her zoomies out, she’ll never fall asleep.

Quiet settles again in the air, crickets chirping in the grass. I pluck at the guitar because it helps to give me something to do, as I try to formulate my thoughts, as I work up the courage to ask what I’ve been wanting to since I came home Sunday night. After everything changed with Juliet.

“Dad,” I say quietly.

He doesn’t look at me, just keeps on plucking at the banjo. “Yes, son.”

“When…you met Mom, when you first got married, you two weren’t in love, right?”

He hesitates. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

“But that’s how you tell the story.”

“That’s how your mother tells the story,” he says. “Took her a while to realize she was madly in love with me—don’t know why.” He winks the way I do, the only way we can—a double blink, eyes crinkled tight at the corners.

I frown at him, stunned. I’ve grown up being told my parents married at first because it was the least expensive, most efficient way to combine their adjacent properties, to allow them to begin a shared vision for their land and business that they believed in. And then, gradually, they fell in love.

“So it was Mom who wasn’t sure at first?” I ask.

He tips his head from side to side. “Think she knew. She was just too scared to admit it.”

“Why?”

“?’Cause it happened so fast,” he says, picking at the banjo, his gaze far off. The wind rustles his silver hair. A small smile lifts the corner of his mouth, and he scratches at the side of his beard. “She just…needed time, to settle into it.”

“But for you?”

“For me…” He shrugs. “It was love at first sight, but I’ll admit I only understand that now in hindsight. I didn’t know I loved her at first, either.”

My hands slip on the strings, sending a twanging, out-of-tune note ringing through the air My heart starts pounding inside my chest. “What do you mean?”

He’s quiet for so long that anyone else might be uncomfortable with our stretched-out silence. But I know him. I’m like him in this way. I just sit there quietly and wait.

“The first time I met your mother,” he finally says, “it was like, all my life, the way I saw my world was as a house, with a known set of rooms, each for a place in my life—work, friends, family, hobbies, interests. I was so sure those were all the rooms there were for me. But when I met your mother, it was like…another door appeared in my world, and I knew there wasn’t just another room on the other side of that door but a whole universe.”

My heart’s flying, my breathing tight, as I listen to him.

He peers down at the banjo, picking softly. “I don’t know if you believe in soulmates, Will, but I think that’s who your soulmate is—someone whose existence blows your world wide open, someone who makes you want to be brave and curious. When I saw your mother, I felt a sense of possibility like I’d never felt with anyone else. I didn’t know her, but I wanted to. I didn’t think I loved her yet, but there was nothing I wanted more than to open that door she’d made appear and walk, hand in hand with her, into all that possibility. Soon enough, I figured out what that wanting was.” He glances my way and shrugs. “Love.”

“When?” I ask. “How?”

He blows out a breath. “I wish I could tell you. It just…crept up on me. It wasn’t like I suddenly woke up one day, sat across from her at the table, sipping my coffee, and sensed a damn lick of difference in how I felt about her. It wasn’t the feeling that had changed or grown. I just…finally had a name for it.”

I sigh heavily, eyes down on the guitar as I pluck slowly at its strings, my mind turning. Could it be that simple? Have I loved Juliet since she blew my world wide open, I just haven’t recognized it for what it is?

“This about that lady you’ve been driving down to court every weekend?” he asks. “A certain Juliet?”

My hand slips on the guitar again, another off-key twang ringing in the air. “How’d you know?”

Dad grins. “Your mother, Will, has been on the phone—good Lord, has she been on that phone—talking with your young lady’s mother. I remember them getting along well enough, through Fee, but now? Those two are as thick as thieves.”

I blink. Stunned. “We told Juliet’s parents we were just friends.”

He laughs, hoarse and husky. “And your mother heard that from her, I’m sure, but she also knows all too well what can come of two people being ‘friends.’?” He pauses for a minute, then says, “It’s all right to be scared, Will. It’s natural, the first time you recognize those feelings in yourself—if that is what you’re feeling.”

“It is?”

“Sure,” Dad says. “The most important people in our lives—because of how deeply they matter to us, how much of ourselves we entrust to them—it means they hold our heart in their clutches. That is terrifying. And some days the fear of how…exposed that makes us feel, all the unknowns it introduces, well, that fear is loud . But the love, the joy it brings you, the hope it gives you, can be even louder, the more you turn toward it, the more you give yourself over to it, the more you choose it. That’s how love gets the last word.”

I sit there, the guitar quiet in my hands. “Thanks, Dad,” I tell him quietly.

He nods, then reaches over and grips my arm, squeezing hard.

He doesn’t say another word as I sit beside him on the porch, and I don’t, either. I watch the sun fade, already begging it to be tomorrow, for the sun to come up.

So I can finally step into this whole universe I’ve found in how I feel for Juliet. A world I hope she’ll want to step into with me, hand in hand.